Definition of Pantheism

Pantheism

The view according to
which God and the world are one. The name pantheist
was introduced by John Toland (1670-1722) in his
"Socinianism truly Stated" (1705), while pantheism was
first used by his opponent Fay in "Defensio Religionis"
(1709). Toland published his "Pantheisticon" in 1732.
The doctrine itself goes back to the early Indian
philosophy; it appears during the course of history in a
great variety of forms, and it enters into or draws
support from so many other systems that, as Professor
Flint says ("Antitheistic Theories", 334), "there is
probably no pure pantheism". Taken in the strictest
sense, i.e. as identifying God and the world, Pantheism is
simply Atheism. In any of its forms it involves Monism
(q.v.), but the latter is not necessarily pantheistic.
Emanationism (q.v.) may easily take on a pantheistic
meaning and as pointed out in the Encyclical, "Pascendi
dominici gregis" the same is true of the modern doctrine
of immanence (q.v.).

VARIETIES

These agree in the fundamental doctrine
that beneath the apparent diversity and multiplicity of
things in the universe there is one only being absolutely
necessary, eternal, and infinite. Two questions then
arise: What is the nature of this being? How are the
manifold appearances to be explained? The principal
answers are incorporated in such different earlier systems
as Brahminism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, and
Gnosticism, and in the later systems of Scotus Eriugena
and Giordano Bruno (qq.v.).

Spinoza's pantheism was realistic: the one being of the
world had an objective character. But the systems that
developed during the nineteenth century went to the
extreme of idealism. They are properly grouped under
the designation of "transcendental pantheism", as their
starting-point is found in Kant's critical philosophy.
Kant (q.v.) had distinguished in knowledge the matter
which comes through sensation from the outer world,
and the forms, which are purely subjective and yet are
the more important factors. Furthermore, he had
declared that we know the appearances (phenomena) of
things but not the things-in-themselves (noumena). And
he had made the ideas of the soul, the world, and God
merely immanent, so that any attempt to demonstrate
their objective value must end in contradiction. This
subjectivism paved the way for the pantheistic theories
of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.

Fichte set back into the mind all the elements of
knowledge, i.e. matter as well as form; phenomena and
indeed the whole of reality are products of the thinking
Ego-not the individual mind but the absolute or
universal self-consciousness. Through the three-fold
process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, the Ego
posits the non-Ego not only theoretically but also for
practical purposes, i.e. for effort and struggle which are
necessary in order to attain the highest good. In the
same way the Ego, free in itself, posits other free agents
by whose existence its own freedom is limited. Hence the
law of right and all morality; but hence also the Divine
being. The living, active moral order of the world, says
Fichte, is itself God, we need no other God, and can
conceive of no other. The idea of God as a distinct
substance is impossible and contradictory. Such, at any
rate, is the earlier form of his doctrine, though in his
later theorizing he emphasizes more and more the
concepts of the Absolute as embracing all individuals
within itself.

According to Schelling, the Absolute is the "identity
of all differences"-object and subject, nature and mind,
the real order and the ideal; and the knowledge of this
identity is obtained by an intellectual intuition which,
abstracting from every individual thinker and every
possible object of thought, contemplates the absolute
reason. Out of this original unity all things evolve in
opposite directions: nature as the negative pole, mind or
spirit as the positive pole of a vast magnet, the universe.
Within this totality each thing, like the particle of a
magnet, has its nature or form determined according as it
manifests subjectivity or objectivity in greater degree.
History is but the gradual self-revelation of the Absolute;
when its final period will come to pass we know not; but
when it does come, then God will be.

The system of Hegel (q.v.) has been called "logical
pantheism", as it is constructed on the "dialectical"
method; and "panlogismus", since it describes the entire
world-process as the evolution of the Idea. Starting from
the most abstract of notions, i.e. pure being, the
Absolute develops first the various categories; then it
externalizes itself, and Nature is the result; finally it
returns upon itself, regains unity and self-consciousness,
becomes the individual spirit of man. The Absolute,
therefore, is Mind; but it attains its fullness only by a
process of evolution or "becoming", the stages of
which form the history of the universe.

These idealistic constructions were followed by a
reaction due largely to the development of the natural
sciences. But these in turn offer, apparently, new
support to the central positions of pantheism, or at any
rate they point, it is claimed, to that very unity and that
gradual unfolding which pantheism has all along asserted.
The principle of the conservation of energy through
ceaseless transformations, and the doctrine of evolution
applied to all things and all phenomena, are readily
interpreted by the pantheist in favor of his own system.
Even where the ultimate reality is said to be unknowable
as in Herbert Spencer's "Synthetic Philosophy", it is still
one and the same being that manifests itself alike in
evolving matter and in the consciousness that evolves
out of lower material forms. Nor is it surprising that
some writers should see in
pantheism the final outcome of all speculation and the
definitive expression which the human mind has found
for the totality of things.

This statement, in fact, may well serve as a summary
of the pantheistic doctrine:

Reality is a unitary being;
individual things have no absolute independence- they
have existence in the All-One, the ens realissimum et et
perfectissimum of which they are the more or less
independent members;

The All-One manifests itself
to us, so far as it has any manifestations, in the two sides
of reality-nature and history;

The universal
interaction that goes on in the physical world is the
showing forth of the inner aesthetic teleological
necessity with which the All-One unfolds his essential
being in a multitude of harmonious modifications, a
cosmos of concrete ideas (monads, entelechies). This
internal necessity is at the same time absolute freedom
or self-realization.

CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

The Church has
repeatedly condemned the errors of pantheism. Among
the propositions censured in the Syllabus of Pius IX is
that which declares: "There is no supreme, all-wise and
all-provident Divine Being distinct from the universe;
God is one with nature and therefore subject to change;
He becomes God in man and the world; all things are God
and have His substance; God is identical with the world,
spirit with matter, necessity with freedom, truth with
falsity, good with evil, justice with injustice"
(Denzinger-Bannwart, "Ench.", 1701). And the First Vatican
Council anathematizes those who assert that the
substance or essence of God and of all things is one and
the same, or that all things evolve from God's essence
(ibid., 1803 sqq.).

CRITICISM

To our perception the world presents a
multitude of beings each of which has qualities activities,
and existence of its own, each is an individual thing.
Radical differences mark off living things from those
that are lifeless; the conscious from the unconscious human thought and volition from the activities of lower
animals. And among human beings each personality
appears as a self, which cannot by any effort become
completely one with other selves. On the other hand,
any adequate account of the world other than downright
materialism includes the concept of some original Being
which, whether it be called First Cause, or Absolute, or
God, is in its nature and existence really distinct from
the world. Only such a Being can satisfy the demands of
human thought, either as the source of the moral order
or as the object of religious worship. If, then, pantheism
not only merges the separate existences of the world in
one existence, but also identifies this one with the
Divine Being, some cogent reason or motive must be
alleged in justification of such a procedure. Pantheists
indeed bring forward various arguments in support of
their several positions, and in reply to criticism aimed at
the details of their system; but what lies back of their
reasoning and what has prompted the construction of all
pantheistic theories, both old and new, is the craving for
unity. The mind, they insist, cannot accept
dualism or pluralism as the final account of reality. By
an irresistible tendency, it seeks to substitute for the
apparent multiplicity and diversity of things a unitary
ground or source, and, once this is determined, to explain
all things as somehow derived though not really
separated from it.

That such is in fact the ideal of many philosophers
cannot be denied; nor is it needful to challenge the
statement that reason does aim at unification on some
basis or other. But this very aim and all endeavors in
view of it must likewise be kept within reasonable
bounds: a theoretical unity obtained at too great a
sacrifice is no unity at all, but merely an abstraction that
quickly falls to pieces. Hence for an estimate of
pantheism two questions must be considered:

at what
cost does it identify God and the world; and

is the
identification really accomplished or only attempted?

The answer to the first is furnished by a review of the leading
concepts which enter into the pantheistic system.

God

It has often been claimed that pantheism by
teaching us to see God in everything gives us an exalted
idea of His wisdom, goodness, and power, while it
imparts to the visible world a deeper meaning. In point
of fact, however, it makes void the attributes which
belong essentially to the Divine nature For the pantheist
God is not a personal Being. He is not an intelligent
Cause of the world, designing, creating and governing it
in accordance with the free determination of His
wisdom. If consciousness is ascribed to Him as the one
Substance, extension is also said to be His attribute
(Spinoza), or He attains to self-consciousness only
through a process of evolution (Hegel). But this very
process implies that God is not from eternity perfect:
He is forever changing, advancing from one degree of
perfection to another, and helpless to determine in what
direction the advance shall take place. Indeed, there is
no warrant for saying that He "advances" or becomes
more "perfect"; at most we can say that He, or rather It,
is constantly passing into other forms. Thus God is not
only impersonal, but also changeable and finite-which
is equivalent to saying that He is not God.

It is true that some pantheists, such as Paulsen,
while frankly denying the personality of God, pretend to
exalt His being by asserting that He is "supra-personal."
If this means that God in Himself is infinitely beyond
any idea that we can form of Him, the statement is
correct; but if it means that our idea of Him is radically
false and not merely inadequate, that consequently we
have no right to speak of infinite intelligence and will,
the statement is simply a makeshift which pantheism
borrows from agnosticism Even then the term
"supra-personal" is not consistently applied to what
Paulsen calls the All-One; for this, if at all related to
personality, should be described as infra-personal.

Once the Divine personality is removed, it is
evidently a misnomer to speak of God as just or holy, or
in any sense a moral Being. Since God, in the pantheistic
view, acts out of sheer necessity--that is, cannot act
otherwise--His action is no more good than it is evil. To
say, with Fichte, that God is the moral order, is an open
contradiction; no such order exists where nothing is free,
nor could God, a non-moral Being, have established a
moral order either for Himself or for other beings. If, on
the other hand, it be maintained that the moral order
does exist, that it is postulated by our human judgments,
the plight of pantheism is no better; for in that case all
the actions of men, their crimes as well as their good
deeds, must be imputed to God. Thus the Divine Being
not only loses the attribute of absolute holiness, but even
falls below the level of those men in whom moral
goodness triumphs over evil.

Man

No such claim, however, can be made in behalf
of the moral order by a consistent pantheist. For him,
human personality is a mere illusion: what we call the
individual man is only one of the countless fragments
that make up the Divine Being; and since the All is
impersonal no single part of it can validly claim
personality. Futhermore, since each human action is
inevitably determined, the consciousness of freedom is
simply another illusion, due, as Spinoza says, to our
ignorance of the causes that compel us to act. Hence our
ideas of what "ought to be" are purely subjective, and our
concept of a moral order, with its distinctions of right
and wrong, has no foundation in reality. The so-called
"dictates of conscience" are doubtless interesting
phenomena of mind which the psychologist may
investigate and explain, but they have no binding force
whatever; they are just as illusory as the ideas of virtue
and duty, of injustice to the fellow-man and of sin
against God. But again, since these dictates, like all our
ideas, are produced in us by God, it follows that He is the
source of our illusions regarding morality-a
consequence which certainly does not enhance His
holiness or His knowledge.

It is not, however, clear that the term illusion is
justified; for this supposes a distinction between truth
and error-a distinction which has no meaning for the
genuine pantheist; all our judgments being the utterance
of the One that thinks in us, it is impossible to
discriminate the true from the false. He who rejects
pantheism is no further from the truth than he who
defends it; each but expresses a thought of the Absolute
whose large tolerance harbors all contradictions.
Logically, too, it would follow that no heed should be
taken as to veracity of statement, since all statements
are equally warranted. The pantheist who is careful to
speak in accordance with his thought simply refrains
from putting his philosophy into practice. But it is none
the less significant that Spinoza's chief work was his
"Ethics", and that, according to one modern view, ethics
has only to describe what men do, not to prescribe what
they ought to do.

Religion

In forming its conception of God,
pantheism eliminates every characteristic that religion
presupposes. An impersonal being, whatever attributes it
may have, cannot be an object of worship. An infinite
substance or a self-evolving energy may excite fear but it
repels faith and love. Even the beneficent forms of its
manifestation call forth no gratitude, since these result
from it by a rigorous necessity. For the same reason,
prayer of any sort is useless, atonement is vain and merit
impossible. The supernatural of course disappears
entirely when God and the world are identified.

Recent advocates of pantheism have sought to obviate
these difficulties and to show that, apart from particular
dogmas, the religious life and spirit are safeguarded in
their theory. But in this attempt they divest religion of
its essentials, reducing it to mere feeling. Not action,
they allege, but humility and trustfulness constitute
religion. This, however is an arbitrary procedure; by the
same method it could be shown that religion is nothing
more than existing or breathing. The pantheist quite
overlooks the fact that religion means obedience to
Divine law; and of this obedience there can be no
question in a system which denies the freedom of man's
will. According to pantheism there is just as little
"rational service" in the so-called religious life as there is
in the behavior of any physical agent. And if men still
distinguish between actions that are religious and those
that are not, the distinction is but another illusion.

Immortality

Belief in a future life is not only an
incentive to effort and a source of encouragement; for
the Christian at least it implies a sanction of Divine law,
a prospect of retribution. But this sanction is of no
meaning or efficacy unless the soul survive as an
individual. If, as pantheism teaches, immortality is
absorption into the being of God, it can matter little
what sort of life one leads here. There is no ground for
discriminating between the lot of the righteous and
that of the wicked, when all ,alike are
merged in the Absolute. And if by some further process
of evolution such a discrimination should come to pass,
it can signify nothing, either as reward or as punishment,
once personal consciousness has ceased. That perfect
union with God which pantheism seems to promise, is no
powerful inspiration to right living when one considers
how far from holy must be a God who continually takes
up into Himself the worst of humanity along with the
best--if indeed one may continue to think in terms that
involve a distinction between evil and good.

It is therefore quite plain that in endeavoring to
unify all things, pantheism sacrifices too much. If God,
freedom, morality and religion must all be reduced to the
One and its inevitable processes, there arises the question
whether the craving for unity may not be the source of
illusions more fatal than any of those which pantheism
claims to dispel. But in fact no such unification is
attained. The pantheist uses his power of abstraction to
set aside all differences, and then declares that the
differences are not really there. Yet even for him they
seem to be there, and so from the very outset he is
dealing with appearance and reality; and these two he
never fuses into one. He simply hurries on to assert that
the reality is Divine and that all the apparent things are
manifestations of the infinite, but he does not explain
why each manifestation should be finite or why the
various manifestations should be interpreted in so many
different and conflicting ways by human minds, each of
which is a part of one and the same God. He makes the
Absolute pass onward from unconsciousness to
consciousness but does not show why there should be
these two stages in evolution, or why evolution, which
certainly means becoming "other", should take place at all.

It might be noted, too, that pantheism fails to unify
subject and object, and that in spite of its efforts the
world of existence remains distinct from the world of
thought. But such objections have little weight with the
thorough-going pantheist who follows Hegel, and is
willing for the sake of "unity" to declare that Being and
Nothing are identical.

There is nevertheless a fundamental unity which
Christian philosophy has always recognized, and which
has God for its centre. Not as the universal being, nor as
the formal constituent principle of things, but as their
efficient cause operating in and through each, and as the
final cause for which things exist, God in a very true
sense is the source of all thought and reality (see St.
Thomas, "Contra Gentes", I). His omnipresence and
action, far from eliminating secondary causes, preserve
each in the natural order of its efficiency-physical
agents under the determination of physical law and
human personality in the exercise of intelligence and
freedom. the foundation
of the moral order. The straining after unity in the
pantheistic sense is without warrant, the only intelligible
unity is that which God himself has established, a unity
of purpose which is manifest alike in the processes of the
material universe and in the free volition of man, and
which moves on to its fulfillment in the union of the
created spirit with the infinite Person, the author of the
moral order and the object of religious worship.